The Battle for Big Data

The Battle for Big Data

Salesforce adds muscle in its fight with Microsoft for a bigger share of the market which helps businesses target customers with tools to analyze data.

The business of analyzing data is fast becoming a battleground, with tech behemoths, such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Amazon.com Inc, boosting their presence in the marketplace to take on established names like Microsoft and Tableau.

In the latest big takeover, Salesforce.com Inc agreed Monday to buy Tableau Software Inc for $15.3 billion, which should enable it to challenge Microsoft Corp for a bigger share of the big data market, which helps businesses target customers with tools to analyze and visualize data.

“The deal is transformative for the software industry, the most dramatic move yet by a cloud major to boost its analytics offerings,” Wedbush Securities analyst Steve Koenig told Reuters.

Tableau’s software is deployed to create interactive, visual dashboards and graphics which are subsequently used by businesses, universities, and governments to analyze a wide variety of data.

The Salesforce deal comes hot on the heels of Google buying big data analytics firm Looker for $2.6 billion and surpasses the $5.9 billion that Salesforce paid to buy US software maker MuleSoft in 2018.

Tableau has more than 86,000 customers, including major names such as Verizon Communications Inc and Netflix.

Tableau shares jumped 38% to reach a record high of $173.09 in afternoon trading Monday.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, after which Tableau will operate independently under the leadership of CEO Adam Selipsky.

Big Data

Worldwide Big Data market revenues for software and services are projected to increase from $42bn in 2018 to $103bn in 2027, attaining a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.48%, according to Wikibon.

According to an Accenture study, 79% of enterprise executives agree that companies that do not embrace Big Data will lose their competitive position and could face extinction. Even more, 83% have pursued Big Data projects to seize a competitive edge.